The Absent Uncle: Phubbing

Somedays, a guy finds himself reading all sorts of things to avoid doing necessary chores or errands. After all, the internet is full of things to learn about – why waste the time?

Well today, good readers of this column, I will pass along today’s nugget of knowledge.   

I so enjoy words and today discovered a new word. I checked my Webster’s and found it was not included (of course my edition is 30-plus years old). But according to the internet (and it is never wrong), “phubbing” is an accepted word. Welcome to the world, new word! 

The words definition is more of a description than a true definition. It’s origin somewhat hazy, but “phubbing” is certainly practiced, accepted, and heretofore (at least in my world) never before labeled. 

Phubbing is the practice of not answering/responding to a call, a text, or any other form of communication from a personally known sender. This “personally known sender” label eliminates the thousands of spam messages received daily from being included in this definition. 

It seems “phubbing” is sort of contraction from the word “snubbing” and the use of the smartphone. Seeing a communication on your smartphone from a personally known sender and not responding is, by definition, “phubbing”. 

We have all done it. It is a practice done every day. Maybe we are busy, maybe we just don’t want to communicate, maybe it is uncomfortable to respond for whatever reason. 

We use “bad signal”, “no Wi-Fi”, “my battery died”, “network failure”, or other such excuses for having not responded – but now we all know it is “phubbing”.

Such a relief.